Tag: buckingham county

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All that glitters

The Warminster Baptist Church, in Buckingham County, is at the center of a community that could be destroyed if a gold mine were established.

By Amelia Delphos

The Warminster Baptist Church sits on the corner of Warminster Church and Sycamore Creek roads in Buckingham County. The historic Black church was established in 1866; the congregation has worshiped in three different buildings, but never strayed far from the plot of soil where their traditions began. 

Across the street, multiple generations of the Wayne family own land and live next to each other, as they have their entire lives. Their family members are buried down Sycamore Creek Road, less than a mile away, where they will one day be buried themselves. 

The property that sits directly next to both the Wayne family and the church is owned by Weyerhaeuser, a timber and wood products company that grows and harvests forests. For the past four years, Weyerhaeuser has partnered with Aston Bay Holdings, a Canadian gold exploration company, which has quietly conducted exploratory drilling on the Weyerhaeuser land. The companies are searching for gold deposits beneath the forest.

An extractive gold mining operation could spell trouble for the people and environment of rural Buckingham County. But the area is no stranger to an environmental fight. Last year, the Atlantic Coast Pipeline was canceled in part due to the dedicated organizing of Buckingham’s activists. Now, those organizers once again find themselves defending themselves and their environment from big business. 

High price

Buckingham County, Virginia, was the leading producer of gold in the United States prior to the California Gold Rush in 1849. A belt of gold and pyrite runs through the foothills of Virginia, from Fairfax, through Buckingham, and down to Appomattox. In the 19th century, gold mining was done with a pickaxe and shovel. Miners dug down until groundwater filled the mine and would move on to the next one. 

Things have changed since the 1840s. Today, multinational companies swoop in to areas with historic gold mining success and set up huge mines. Open-pit gold mines look like craters left by asteroids, dents in the earth hundreds of feet deep and hundreds of thousands of feet wide. 

Gold mines decimate local ecosystems. A 2017 study conducted by environmental groups found that “Gold mines almost always pollute water—74 percent of operating gold mines polluted surface and/or groundwater, including drinking water.” That’s a particular problem in Buckingham County, where residents are almost entirely reliant on groundwater. The small town of Dillwyn has a water treatment plant, but the rest of the county’s 17,000 residents drink from the deep wells on their properties.

Aston Bay’s exploratory drilling is taking place very close to the James River, which provides drinking water for over three million Virginians. 

“All of the streams are heading downstream from that location to the James,” says Chad Oba, president of Friends of Buckingham, a local group of citizens “united to work with our county leaders to attract economic investment opportunities that benefit all of our residents, and that contribute to a sustainable healthy environment.” 

Oba’s group first coalesced in opposition to the Atlantic Coast Pipeline in 2014. That project, too, would have had dangerous impacts on local watersheds. If a gold mine comes, “The James, very definitely, would be impacted,” says Oba.

Mining town

A couple years ago, Paul Barlow, a resident of Buckingham County, had two Canadian geologists approach him and ask to take samples from his creek. The geologists were not affiliated with Aston Bay, but had heard there was exploratory core drilling happening nearby, and they hoped to locate the source that had drawn their countrymen. Barlow agreed, and the geologists took samples and sent them back to their lab in Canada. 

About eight months later, they told Barlow they found no gold in his creek, but they did find indications that gold could be close to Barlow’s property. Casually, Barlow asked the geologists what would have happened if they had found a deposit on his land.

“‘Would you guys dig a pit? Would you guys tunnel for it?’” Barlow asked. “They both laughed and said ‘Oh no, no, no, it would be an open-pit mine. You would have to move, we would completely destroy your 27 acres, and up your house that you would have to move. All these trees and all these hills would be leveled with huge, open pits.’”

The geologists told Barlow he wouldn’t have to sell or lease his land, but he wouldn’t be able to live there because of the mining operation. It’s a timeworn Appalachian tale: community members presented with a choice to sell their land to the arriving industrialists and have it decimated, or stay, and watch their property value dwindle to nothing.

Paul Barlow. Photo: Amelia Delphos

After Barlow’s encounter with the geologists, he traveled south to learn more about what it’s like to live so close to a gold mining operation. About five hours from Buckingham, Kershaw, South Carolina, contains the largest gold mining operation on the East Coast. The Haile Mine sits three miles northeast of Kershaw, where the Australian company OceanaGold mines between 146,000 and 175,000 ounces of gold per year. 

Barlow hoped to talk to the people who lived around the mine.

“I was driving around and it was just empty driveway after empty driveway,” he says. “You could see where a house foundation used to be, and it was just miles of empty driveways.”

Eventually, Barlow found someone who lived close to the mine. In 2012, OceanaGold approached the man and offered to buy his property. The man refused, but his sister, who lived next door, was offered $300,000 for her property, 40 acres and a single-wide trailer. According to local real estate trends, she made a profit.

“The mine will spend a lot of money to displace people.” Barlow says.

Nowhere to go

In 2018, Buckingham’s Warminster Baptist Church’s well went dry. The neighbors down the street began having problems with their well, too. After years of heavier-than-average rainfall, there’s no obvious reason for the wells drying up. 

“Our neighbors to the church, [they] can wash one load of clothes and they have no water,” says Deacon Bill Perkins, who is a Wayne on his mother’s side. He’s concerned that more industry nearby could further disrupt the community’s delicate ecosystem.

“If they was to do the mining in the Warminster Baptist Church neighborhood, it would affect the whole neighborhood,” Perkins says “It would affect our water table, our air, and then bring all of this heavy equipment in and it will destroy our roads.” 

Deacon Bill Perkins. Photo: Amelia Delphos

Should a gold mine be established, it would be difficult for the Wayne family to relocate. The family has been on that land for at least five generations and most of the current residents are elderly. They have grown up together and plan on dying together. 

“We have nowhere to relocate to,” Perkins says. “Most of the people who live in this neighborhood have been there all their life. It’s disturbing that they’re doing this, and we have nowhere else to go.”

On top of that, members of the Wayne family and other church family members are buried in a cemetery on Sycamore Creek Road, less than a mile from the church. “I’m concerned about our cemetery,” says Perkins. “It’s real near where they’re drilling at. What would happen to that? They’re not going to drill around it.”

“It’s a problem,” he says. “A terrible situation.”

Laws of the land

The possible gold mine has already led to changes in local law, and could soon bring about change at the state level, too. 

State geologists say the current exploration is nothing to worry about. At the moment, Aston Bay Holdings is in Buckingham just to perform exploratory drilling.  According to David Spears, a state geologist for the Department of Mining and Mineral Energy, core drilling primarily involves collecting rock samples.

“They drill a hole, they collect the samples, they plug the hole with cement, and then they go away. That’s it,” Spears explained at a November Buckingham County Board of Supervisors and Planning Commission work session. A few weeks later, the Buckingham County Board of Supervisors voted to make core drilling allowable by-right on private property designated for agriculture and industry. That means Aston Bay can proceed without any other special permissions.  

Friends of Buckingham responded to the board’s decision by working with the Virginia League of Conservation Voters to draft a new piece of state legislation. House Bill 2213, introduced in this winter’s General Assembly session, proposed establishing a commission to study the effects of gold mining in the state and imposing a two-year moratorium on large-scale commercial gold mining in Virginia in the meantime. 

“This will extend,” says Oba. “There are 13 counties that the gold-pyrite belt runs through, so, stop it here, you stop it there.”

“Sometimes people think this is an issue that is limited to Buckingham County, and it’s not,” says Delegate Elizabeth Guzman, a Prince William County Democrat and  chief patron of HB2213. “So we have the chance to take this question seriously and examine the issue before opening the door for gold mining that could have long-term impacts on our commonwealth.”

On February 5, HB2213 passed the House on a straight party-line vote. After the bill passed, Stephanie Rinaldi, a community member who lives near the potential mining property, stated, “When I heard they found gold a mile from my house, I panicked. A gold mine here would upend my entire life…We at least need to study and understand this industry before permits are issued.”

A week later, an amended version made it out of the state Senate Rules Committee. The revised bill, which will be presented to Governor Ralph Northam for his consideration this summer, includes the work study group but eliminates the proposed two-year moratorium on gold mining. 

“It’s really disappointing that some of the bill was removed,” Oba says of the decision, though she’s glad the whole bill wasn’t killed. “There still is the study, which is absolutely necessary to protect our water, our air, our land-use, and our history, not only here in Buckingham, but throughout the state.” 

“What’s the big deal? We’re not talking coal mining,” says Democratic Senator Dick Saslaw, one of the members of the rules committee who passed the revised bill, reports the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

Barlow lives about two miles from the exploratory drilling site. He and his wife have lived in Buckingham since 2012, and built the cabin on their property themselves. “We’re just so happy out here,” he says.  “Nice and quiet. We don’t want anything to change out here.” 

Says Perkins, “We love our church, we love our neighborhood, we love everybody that’s in the neighborhood. It’s not a neighborhood that gets a lot of disturbance. It’s a quiet, country neighborhood.”

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In brief: No pipeline, name game, and more

Activists in Buckingham have been fighting the pipeline since 2014. On Sunday, they won. PC: Friends of Buckingham

Pipeline defeated

The Atlantic Coast Pipeline is history. In a surprise announcement on Sunday afternoon, Dominion Power called off the 600-mile natural gas pipeline that would have run from West Virginia to North Carolina. “VICTORY!” declared the website of the Southern Environmental Law Center.

The news is a major win for a wide variety of environmental advocacy groups and grassroots activists, who have been fighting the pipeline on all fronts since the project was started in 2014. The pipeline would have required a 50-yard-wide clear-cut path through protected Appalachian forest, and also disrupted a historically black community in rural Buckingham County.

Dominion won a Supreme Court case earlier this month, but that wasn’t enough to outweigh the “increasing legal uncertainty that overhangs large-scale energy and industrial infrastructure development in the United States,” says the energy giant’s press release.

Litigation from the Southern Environmental Law Center dragged the pipeline’s construction to a halt. Gas was supposed to be flowing by 2019, but less than 6 percent of the pipe ever made it in the ground.

The ACP had the backing of the Trump administration, and U.S. Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette blamed the “obstructionist environmental lobby” for the pipeline’s demise.

“I felt like it was the best day of my life,” says Ella Rose, a Friends of Buckingham member, in a celebratory email. “I feel that all the hard work that all of us have done was finally for good. I feel like I have my life back. I can now sleep better without the worries that threatened my life for so long.”

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Quote of the week

“It is past time. As the capital city of Virginia, we have needed to turn this page for decades. And today, we will.”

—Richmond mayor Levar Stoney on the city’s removal of its Stonewall Jackson and Matthew Fontaine Maury statues

__________________

In brief

Loan-ly at the top

On Monday, the government released a list of companies that accepted loans through the federal Paycheck Protection Program, designed to keep workers employed during COVID’s economic slowdown. A variety of Charlottesville businesses accepted loans of $2-5 million, including Red Light Management, St. Anne’s-Belfield, and Tiger Fuel.

Renaming re-do

An advisory committee recommended last week that recently merged Murray High and Community Charter schools be renamed Rose Hill Community School, but this suggestion immediately raised eyebrows: Rose Hill was the name of a plantation that later became a neighborhood. The committee will reconvene to discuss options for a new moniker.     

City hangs back

Charlottesville is one of a handful of localities that have pushed back against Governor Ralph Northam’s order to move to Phase 3 of reopening. While some of the state has moved forward,  City Manager Tarron Richardson has decided to keep the city government’s facilities operating in accordance with Phase 2 requirements and restrictions. As stated on its website, this decision was made in order to “ensure the health and safety of staff and the public.”

Soldier shut in

Since at least the beginning of July, the gates of UVA’s Confederate cemetery, where a statue of a Confederate soldier stands, have been barricaded, reports the Cavalier Daily. A university spokesman says the school locked the cemetery because protesters elsewhere in the state have been injured by falling statues. Or maybe, as UVA professor Jalane Schmidt suggested on Twitter, “they’re tryna keep the dead from escaping.” 

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Living

We are all Meteor: Pondering our emotional connection to animals

The yak: big, hairy, and horned—but “cute.”

On October 22, The Washington Post published a 2,000-word story about Meteor the yak. The piece was essentially a deep-dive obituary of the sort usually reserved for movie stars, war heroes, and pioneers in the arts, science, and industry. I would call it overkill, because I can’t resist a pun. But that’s not exactly how I feel about the detailed death notice.

I am what is sometimes called an “animal person.” I have an affinity for all things furry and four-legged, feathered and beaked, and even creepy and crawly, with the notable exception of stink bugs. I hate stink bugs. But I loved Meteor—or rather, I loved his story and what he symbolized. He was defiant, heroic, crafty, and even cute, if that word can be applied to a shaggy 600-pound beast with great big horns.

The condensed version of Meteor’s life and death goes something like this: He lived and grazed at Buckingham County’s Nature’s Bridge Farm, owned by one Robert Cissell. On September 10, while being trailered to the abattoir, Meteor escaped when Cissell stopped at an intersection. During the 17 days that the animal roamed free—a “yak on the lam,” as C-VILLE Weekly reported—he was spotted a few times and photographed at least once. The somewhat blurry image, taken from a distance, brought to mind a Bigfoot sighting. But this yak was no yeti. Meteor’s existence was verifiable, and the media was quick to lionize him (remember, the puns). If he were a human, he would have been a budding folk hero, refusing to accept his inevitable fate—to be carved up and sold at the Charlottesville City Market, which is what Cissell does with Meteor’s pasture buddies. Instead, the yak enjoyed more than 15 days of fame, making local and national headlines, inspiring a blog, and becoming a favorite topic of conversation among cubicle-dwelling human workers. Meteor had escaped, “fleeing into the Virginia mountains,” as USA Today declared.

Back in the Stone Age, when I was a cub reporter in Columbia, Missouri, I had written about livestock escapees, so I knew what all the hubbub was about. There was a slaughterhouse within the city limits—just a few blocks from my apartment, in fact—and jittery cattle jumped the stockade every now and then. One cop on the local police force gained some small degree of notoriety as the terminator in these situations. He used a 12-gauge shotgun loaded with a single-slug cartridge—from close range. I’ll never forget the front-page photo: a little cloud of smoke still hung in front of the muzzle, and the very large animal had begun to topple, two hooves on the ground and the others about a foot in the air.

This was no cause for celebration. The police said that killing the animal as quickly as possible—rather than, say, tranquilizing it and hauling it back to the meat factory—was a matter of public safety. There was an elementary school nearby, for heaven’s sake, and the certain death of a steer was preferable to the possible trampling of a playground full of kids. Back in the newsroom we talked about the inappropriateness of an old-time slaughterhouse in a modern city neighborhood, and we joked about the officer who apparently relished his role as a cattle killer. My overwhelming emotion, not disclosed to my colleagues, was sadness.

That’s what I felt when I heard the news about Meteor being hit by a car on Route 29, and euthanized, on the morning of September 27. I also had a wistful smile on my face as I took to C-VILLE Weekly’s Facebook page and wrote a brief eulogy for the yak. Later, when the WaPo story hit, I felt it was a bit much. Granted, there had been a story a few days earlier about a monkey on the loose in Charlottesville. No one ever found the little critter, and I suspect maybe someone only imagined seeing it before dialing 911. Regardless, it was news fodder. But the story about Meteor quickly veered into TMI territory, including a mention of “methods for obviating the smell of urine that comes with cooking [yak] kidneys.”

Among the more than 30 commenters, some bashed Cissell as “irresponsible” and blamed him for Meteor’s death (they missed the irony, I guess), while others commended Cissell for his lifestyle choice and commitment to sustainable farming. One person extolled the deliciousness of yak yogurt, and yet another declared yaks “cute.”

Scientifically speaking, that’s partly what it comes down to. Ethologist Konrad Lorenz (you know, the one with the line of ducks following him) used the term Kindchenschema to describe human infant features—a large head, round face, and big eyes—that we perceive as cute and which motivate caretaking behavior. Lorenz’s research is cited in studies that found people more likely to save a dog or a child than an adult from a life-threatening situation. Dogs and kids are cute. We innately want to protect them, to make sure they survive.

I would argue that this idea prevails even when a cute animal is perceived as a threat. On October 24, a bear rummaging through garbage at Brownsville Elementary School caused a lockdown. A photograph published by The Daily Progress shows the sweet-faced little creature clinging to the trunk of a pine tree—with its potentially flesh-shredding claws. Police and animal-control officers chased the bear away, and all was right with the world again. Principal Jason Crutchfield sent a message to the schoolkids’ parents, saying, “As always, safety is a priority at Brownsville, and we are glad that this was handled without incident. Your little bees stayed calm and cool, but, of course, are excited about today’s events.”

As Charlottesville grows, and development creeps into agricultural and natural areas, our encounters with animals other than our pets are increasing. That’s a fact. How we react to said animals says a lot about us, about our capacity to care about and even feel affection for “lesser” living things. At the very least, we should respect them. We are encroaching on their territory, not vice versa. If we accord hero status to Meteor, so be it. And may he rest in peace.

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‘Reckless, racist ripoff:’ Former vice president opposes pipeline in Union Hill

Former vice president Al Gore said the Atlantic Coast Pipeline is a reckless, racist ripoff at a February 19 event in Buckingham County, where Dominion wants to run the pipeline and build one of three compressor stations. Photo by John Robinson

It’s long been clear that the folks of the small, predominately black Union Hill community in bucolic Buckingham County don’t want the Atlantic Coast Pipeline and its compressor station on their soil. And now two well-known voices who condemn environmental racism are joining the fight against it.

Former vice president Al Gore and Reverend William Barber, known across the country for his ministry and political activism, came to Buckingham February 19 and told a crowd of hundreds of community members and allies they oppose what they believe is a risky, expensive, and unnecessary natural gas pipeline that Dominion has intentionally chosen to run through a poor, black neighborhood.

“This is what change looks like,” Gore said to the folks who had spent the night dancing, singing and chanting, holding hands, and pumping fists in solidarity with Union Hill. He added, “I think Dominion is messing with the wrong part of Virginia.”

The former vice president, who also serves as founder and chairman of Climate Reality Project, said the Federal Energy Regulatory Commision never should have given Dominion permission to start building the ACP in the first place, and that current gas pipelines in the country have almost twice as much capacity as the amount of gas flowing through them. Demand for natural gas has decreased as people switch to renewable energy sources and use newer energy-saving technology such as LED lighting, he added.

“This proposed pipeline is a reckless, racist ripoff,” said Gore loudly and passionately into his microphone, bringing most of the crowd to its feet.

Big utility companies like Dominion don’t really make their money by selling electricity or gas, he said, but by building new capacity and adding the cost into their rate base. “If the pipeline is not needed, they have a powerful economic incentive to build it anyway,” he said, echoing what ACP opponents have contended since it was proposed half a decade ago.

The Union Hill story sparked Gore’s interest when he read about a historically significant, low-income community of color being “insulted and abused” by Dominion, which is trying to wreak havoc on a community it thought couldn’t defend itself, he said.

“We’re here to say to Union Hill, you are not standing alone,” said Gore. “We are standing with you.”

ACP spokesperson Karl Neddenien says Dominion has “profound respect” for the Union Hill community, and it plans to invest $5 million to build a community center and upgrade the county’s rescue squad.

Dominion says it chose Union Hill for one of three of the pipeline’s compressor stations because it intersects with an existing pipeline, and because the for-sale property was large enough to also allow for trees and vegetation on-site, with the nearest home a quarter-mile away. The other two, one at the beginning of the pipeline’s route in Lewis County, West Virginia, and the other near the Virginia-North Carolina State line, have also prompted pushback.

Part of Dominion’s justification was also its calculation of approximately 29.6 people per square mile in the surrounding area. Residents say that number is off by about 500 percent, and during their own door-to-door survey of the Union Hill area, they determined that approximately 85 percent of those people are African American.

A third of the county’s residents are descendants of the freedmen community that was established there by former slaves. Dominion is planning to build the compressor station atop freedmen cemeteries and unmarked slave burials, according to Yogaville resident and cultural anthropologist Lakshmi Fjord, who spoke briefly at the event.

Attendees also heard from Mary Finley-Brook, a University of Richmond professor of geography and the environment who served on Governor Ralph Northam’s Advisory Council on Environmental Justice, which recommended against the pipeline last summer. She said her council exposed disproportionate risks for minority communities if the pipeline is built.

“Historic Union Hill is the wrong place to build a compressor station,” said Finley-Brook, who pointed out that poor internet and phone access in Buckingham could mean residents won’t be properly notified of scheduled blowdowns at the station, when gas and toxic air pollutants are released to relieve pressure in the pipe. She also noted the daily safety risk of fires or explosions due to highly pressurized gas equipment and flammable contents.

Reverend Barber touched on how environmental racism is systemic, and how pipelines like the ACP don’t usually run through affluent areas, though politicians and other people of power will encourage poorer communities to accept them.

“Everybody that tells you to be alright with it coming through your community—ask them why it isn’t coming through theirs,” said Barber.

Dominion’s Neddenien says safety standards at the compressor station, if built, will be the strictest of any compressor station in the country, and emissions will be 50 to 80 percent lower than any other station in Virginia.

Barber counters if Northam truly believes that, “request it to be in your backyard.”

Barber also said the power to protest the pipeline lies in the hands of the community, and clarified that he and Gore came to Buckingham by invitation.

“We didn’t come here to lead the fight, we just came here to say, ‘Y’all fight like you never fought before.’”

Irene Ellis Leach is one of those Union Hill community members. Her family has operated a farm four miles away from the proposed site of the compressor station for 117 years, where original buildings built in 1804 are still standing. She says Dominion insists on crossing through the middle of the cattle fields she uses most.

Now she’s one of many landowners in the incineration zone, or the potential impact radius, of 1,100 feet on either side of the pipeline. If it blows, that’s how far the flames will reach.

“If something goes wrong, the resulting fire can’t be put out. It has to burn out,” she says. “We could lose everything, including our lives.”

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Compressor anxiety: Historic African American community alleges environmental racism

The Union Hill community has been united in fighting the Atlantic Coast Pipeline for four years. Courtesy of Friends of Buckingham

About 50 miles south of Charlottesville, in the small, quiet community of Union Hill, there are far more “No Pipeline” signs than traffic lights.

The historic town of weather-faded homes and churches in bucolic Buckingham County could soon be sliced by the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, and in what residents say would add insult to injury, it could become home to one of the 600-mile natural gas pipeline’s three proposed compressor stations.

Residents are calling it “blatant environmental racism,” and allege Dominion intentionally erased a large percentage of their population in its application to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to build the pipeline.

In the final environmental impact statement on the ACP, FERC stated that, on average, there are 29.6 people per square mile in the area surrounding the pipeline’s path in Buckingham—that number was provided by the U.S. Census Bureau.

Residents say that number was off by about 500 percent.

Members of the anti-pipeline group Friends of Buckingham went door-to-door to survey the Union Hill area. They spoke with 64 percent of the people living in the 99 households within that square mile, and of those 158 residents, 85 percent are African American.

The FERC report didn’t mention Union Hill, where a third of the residents are descendants of the freedmen community that was once enslaved there, and where there are freedmen cemeteries and unmarked slave burials on the site where Dominion wants to build its compressor station, according to Yogaville resident and cultural anthropologist Lakshmi Fjord.

She also noted that Charlottesville’s 29 bypass project was halted by just one slave burial site.

On May 31, the governor’s Advisory Council on Environmental Justice met in Buckingham to report some of its findings, make recommendations and host a public comment session, but beforehand, members stopped by the Union Hill Baptist Church for a quick presentation and tour of the proposed compressor station site.

“Now we are in our golden years, and we’d like to keep it that way,” said John Laury as he stood at the front of the pews. He listed his grievances, including the poisonous air that he says the station, if approved, would emit, and its potential effect on water quality in the town where most people rely on wells. “That’s the only water we have,” he said.

Laury, who lives with his wife, Ruby, on the cattle farm down the hill and to the left of the Baptist church, was born and raised in Buckingham. He says he likes the clean air that his county is known for, the nearby wooded areas brimming with wildlife and the constant hum of birds chirping.

“We want to remain here without interruption from big corporations,” he told the governor’s council before its members filed into a big white church van. Laury drove them less than half a mile to the proposed compressor station site.

There, a large swath of land has been cleared because four Transco pipelines, which carry gas from Texas to New York City, already exist under the soil. The ACP would connect to one of the existing pipelines at the 55,000-horsepower compressor station, and transfer the fracked gas up the east coast.

To the left of the existing clear cut, just into the trees, is where Dominion would like to connect the ACP to the Transco line and build its aboveground compressor station.

Nothing can be built and no trees can be planted on the Transco pipeline corridor, according to Fjord, “which is why it is so galling to landowners to have their farmland seized on working farms, where it bisects the fields they grow, where their cattle graze.”

“No tractor or car can cross over one,” says Fjord. “Nothing. Yet, farmers in Buckingham will have to pay the same property taxes on the pipeline easements as if they were working farmland.”

Dominion spokesperson Aaron Ruby says once construction on the pipeline is completed, “the only restrictions on the use of the right of way are planting trees and building structures.”

Ann Loomis, Dominion Energy’s vice president of federal affairs, spoke at the governor’s council meeting. She noted that Dominion employs 42 county residents at its Bear Garden Power Station in Buckingham, and said Dominion is a member of the community.

University of Richmond professor of geography and the environment Mary Finley-Brook, who serves on the council’s pipeline subcommittee, gave a report on what her group has learned so far. She also said it does not recommend construction of the ACP.

If it gets built, Finley-Brook said residents can prepare for Dominion to make environmental violations because it already has a record, including several citations from when it started cutting down trees earlier this year. And “blowdowns,” or release of gas (and toxic air pollutants) to relieve pressure in the pipe, happen about 10 times per year at compressor station sites (a figure that Dominion estimates at once every five years). Finley-Brook also noted Dominion’s underreporting of the Union Hill population.

“This was, in my own professional opinion, not an accident,” she said. “This inaccurate information is a tactic that has been used successfully many times.”

The more rural and less densely populated an area is, the thinner the pipe is permitted to be, and fewer shut-off valves are required, she said.

As for the public health impact, she said, “Compressor stations make people sick.”

Pipeline opponent Suzanne Keller, a retired epidemiologist with the Virginia Department of Health, said Buckingham residents can expect around 350 tons of air pollutants to be released each year.

The crowd of about 50 people heard from Michael Dowd, a Department of Environmental Quality representative, who drew jeers when he said, “The community’s health will be protected.” He added, “I can’t guarantee that there won’t be accidents or events at the compressor station.”

But Dowd did make a promise: “The Buckingham compressor will be among the most, if not the most, stringently regulated compression stations in the country.”

There to give a personal testimony was Ray Kemble, a Dimock, Pennsylvania, resident in a Rolling Thunder motorcycle jacket who’s lived near six compressor stations for several years.

The small town of Dimock was featured in the 2010 documentary Gasland, which showed residents lighting their tap water on fire.

Kemble carried a bottle of water that he drew from his neighbor’s well. It was brown and swirled with oil when he shook it. Kemble said he’s been diagnosed with three types of cancer since the compressor stations were built, and he keeps oxygen tanks at his house, so when the air gets too noxious from blowdowns, he has clean oxygen to breathe. He said he often has to leave his home because the air quality is so bad.

Marie Gillespie. Courtesy photo

The council heard from Marie Gillespie, who lives on Union Hill Road adjacent to where Dominion has already cleared a strip of land for the ACP.

“I think I’m the first person who has been directly impacted by the pipeline and compressor station,” she said, describing hearing an awful noise in her backyard, rushing to get dressed and go outside to see the commotion. By the time she did, the trees were already gone.

“I was stricken,” she said. “I was heartbroken. …The stress has already started. Problems have already begun, and I don’t know where it’s going to end.”

Pastor Paul Wilson. Courtesy photo

Pastor Paul Wilson, who leads the Union Hill and Union Grove Baptist churches, also spoke.

“We are ground zero,” he said, and echoed a popular argument against the ACP. “This whole pipeline is based on false premises. Politicians were bought off, and this county had no choice but to say yes.”

Added Wilson, “We refuse to be the sacrificial lamb.”

And another commenter, through tears, and while banging her balled fist, said, “Nobody’s protecting us. Not a soul.” Her last remark drew enormous energy from the pipeline opponents in the room: “We are going to fight this fight. This is not a done deal.”

Updated June 6 at 3:50pm to correct the source of the data used in the FERC’s environmental impact statement and to include Dominion’s response to claims by Lakshmi Fjord and Mary Finley-Brook. 

Updated June 7 at 3:15 with the correct number of Transco pipelines that already exist in Buckingham County, and with the correct project in Charlottesville that was stopped by one slave burial site.

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News

‘Death by 1,000 cuts:’ A win for Nelson pipeline opponents

Nelson County mountains. Photo: Jack Looney

Companies surveying for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline must provide property owners sufficient written notice before setting foot on their properties, a Nelson County judge ruled May 9. Though this doesn’t stop the project, pipeline opponents say any ruling in favor of landowners is a success.

“It gives us much more control over our property and the ability to protect ourselves,” says Randy Whiting, who lives in Horizons Village at the foot of Wintergreen, a strip of Nelson County that may soon be sliced by the proposed $5 billion natural gas pipeline, which is currently slated to run just under 600 miles through Virginia, West Virginia and North Carolina, including several historically sensitive areas, national forests and private properties.

Eight months ago, Whiting says he and his neighbors in Horizons Village received a notice from Dominion, which said the company had plans to survey their land at some point in the future.

Atlantic Coast Pipeline LLC—a company formed by Dominion Resources, Duke Energy, Piedmont Natural Gas and AGL Resources—had previously entered properties for inspections without giving landowners a specific date of entry, causing at least 37 Virginia landowners to petition the Nelson County Circuit Court to force Dominion and its partners to give them more notice.

“That means they could come at any time. They could come tomorrow or they could come a year from now,” Whiting says. “How are we supposed to plan to be here?”

According to Whiting, many landowners want to be home when Dominion enters their property to make sure the power company’s crews are following all the rules. The recent ruling in Nelson is another way to hold the company accountable by law, he says.

“It means they have to follow through on their word, which is not something Dominion does very well,” he says.

Judge Michael Garrett ruled that Atlantic Coast Pipeline LLC will have to issue new notices of intent to enter with specific dates of entry before inspectors or surveyors may step foot on someone’s property.

Though pipeline opposers say the fight isn’t over yet, they are certain this ruling will set the project back several months—so far, they’ve been able to slow the project down by at least nine months, according to Whiting.

“When you try to stop a pipeline, it’s death by 1,000 cuts,” Whiting says. “It’s very rarely one thing that stops a pipeline. Any little thing added to another little thing makes a difference. It is anything but over.”

In a similar case in Buckingham County, a circuit court judge ruled in favor of the ACP. Whiting says the different rulings make it more likely that the Supreme Court of Virginia will hear the case, and if the higher court sides with landowners, Dominion would have to abide by its ruling in every county in the state.

“In accordance with the court’s opinion, we will revise our landowner notices to include more specific dates so we can survey these remaining properties,” Aaron Ruby, a Dominion spokesperson, says. “Courts in other jurisdictions have reviewed the same landowner notices and found that they met the requirements of the statute, but of course, we will comply with the Nelson court’s ruling in these cases.”

Ruby adds that the Nelson court did affirm, along with every other state and federal court involved, that it is the ACP’s right to perform surveys, and that “surveying performed with proper notification is not a trespass.”

Ernie Reed, a media contact for the 1,000-member group of pipeline opposers called Friends of Nelson, says any time a judge rules against Dominion or the ACP, it is significant, and it “demonstrates that Dominion is not above the law.”

According to Reed, Dominion contacted the Nelson County Board of Supervisors this month about creating a citizen group to work with Dominion on some of the issues surrounding the ACP, and the BOS denied its request.

“We know that a great deal of what [Dominion has] told the public at different times has been far from the truth,” Reed says. “We don’t want Dominion in Nelson County and we’re going to fight until this pipeline is stopped.”

The Atlantic Coast Pipeline, a proposed $5 billion natural gas pipeline that will run just under 600 miles through Virginia, West Virginia and North Carolina, will be visible from 7,178 parcels of land in Nelson County. A judge has ruled in favor of some Nelson landowners.

Pipe Down:

In Nelson, the pipeline’s 1.4-mile wide impact, explosion and evacuation zone endangers:

– 904 properties

– 2,409 homes (including
vacation homes)

– 2,094 people

– 208 acres of impacted forest

Pipeline’s presence:

-Visible from 37 percent, or
7,178 parcels in Nelson

– 26.1 miles of pipeline
in county

*Numbers provided by Key-Log Economics

Related Links: January 21, 2016: Cow knob salamander reroutes Atlantic Coast pipeline

October 6, 2015: Judge sides with pipeline surveyors over landowners